To that parent that thinks they were doing a good thing: you were not.

Before you get involved in another family’s disagreement; ask some basic questions. Especially if you fear something more is going on or someone is in danger. Do not undermine our parenting and put our daughter and us at risk because of your bias and prejudice. A police officer entered our home without our permission because of choices you made, and it could have ended a lot worse than it did. We feel violated by what happened. I know your intentions were not malicious — but nonetheless, your intentions were misguided, and your actions were very dangerous.

This past weekend, my partner and I were having a silly quarantine argument. It was a combination of me getting annoyed by something I’d never normally get bothered by, and my partner getting too defensive.

Unaware she was listening, our daughter walked in, slammed the door behind her and screamed, “Are you done yet?!”, in exactly the tone you’d expect from a teenager forced to stay in their house for almost 8 weeks.

I told her to go to her room for being rude to us. Her response, surprisingly, was a very defiant NO! This was the first time in her 13 years she had refused to do something I asked of her.

After she refused, I raised my voice — demanding that she follow my instructions. In hindsight, this was useless and I should have responded better. Unsurprisingly, she refused again. I raised my voice some more: go to your room right now! This time, she did.

Anxiety, already a common problem in her and so many other teens, has been exacerbated by the new normal and what sometimes, understandably, seems like the end of the world for a teen. She came downstairs a few minutes later saying she was having a panic attack.

After she calmed down enough, I sent her back to her room. She refused again. Not out of fear, but — as before — out of defiance. I took her dog from her (which was in her arms), and told her she had lost her electronics privileges. I then turned her around by the shoulders, and directed her up to her room.

To be very clear: I was firm but at no point violent or aggressive. She was not harmed in any way.

She was surprised, maybe shocked, although I am not sure if it was because she had just realized she screamed NO! at me, or the shock was because of my response. I have never in her 13 years of life hit her or been physical, the only times I have hurt her in her life were accidentally (1) landing on her when we were playing on the trampoline together (which still she regularly reminds me of), (2) grabbing her arm and pulling her back when she ran towards an oncoming car in a parking lot, and (3) hitting her head on the window of an aquarium when she was on my shoulders.

So, removing something from her hands and forcibly turning her around and directing her up the stairs was something she’d never experienced.

Anyway, how dare I take her electronics away from her! I didn’t need to carry her up the stairs — she ran up the stairs, screaming something along the lines of: “You are so unfair!” (I can’t remember the exact words.)

And with that, the teenage years had truly begun.

My expectation at this point was that she would take the time to calm down some more, and we’d call her down to sit around the table and talk about what happened and why it was not appropriate. And we would talk about how I should have reacted better to it, too. We’d talk with her about parents arguing. How it is OK — and that it is normal — to feel the way we all are right now. All the “new normal” stuff. How it is ok to make mistakes and feel angry, how we will sometimes overreact to things, how we’re not always the best versions of ourselves right now. How I am sorry if I didn’t respond to her being rude the best I could have. But we all love each other and will make up and move on, knowing we are all trying as hard as we can. Maybe some conversation on how to manage her frustrations and feelings about being locked up, and finally end with a hug and a smile and joke about something just like all the other times.

So what happened next really, really surprised us. My partner and I continued to talk about our issues from earlier, not really thinking too much about our daughter’s response. We’d mostly resolved it and were waiting for a little time to pass before calling her down. Often, she’ll come down and apologize and we’ll talk through it before I even call her down.

And then there was a knock at the door. The first people we have had there in 7 or 8 weeks other than deliveries: to my surprise — the Sheriff’s Deputy. I picked up my daughter’s dog (a tiny little poodle) who was barking like mad, and opened the door, confused as to why they were there.

The Deputy was pleasant. She seemed like she was on her own from where I was standing. She told me that they had received a “domestic report” and come to investigate. I told her the summary of what happened and then asked if she would like me to go and get our daughter. She said yes, please.

I went upstairs to get her. Her door was open and she was not there. Even more confused and also worried at that point. Was she ok? Had something happened to her? Had she left the house and got hit by a car? Something worse? One of my main fears is her being alone on the rural road we live on, and how cars drive by (speed by, really) with no one to see or hear anything.

Coming back downstairs, I find a police officer dressed in uniform from the nearby city police (which we’re not part of) in my lounge, peering around my office. This was the first person in our house in 7ish weeks, uninvited. Not even wearing a mask!

Immediately I asked him what he was doing and who on earth gave him permission to come into our house. He quickly walked out, mumbling about how it was a domestic call and he was allowed to be inside. Maybe I had a gun, he said, and had gone to get it. Right.

Once outside, I called him out in front of his colleague and the Deputy (both of whom also remained outside). I only then realised whom he was — this officer known in the local town has come up in a number of stories involving officers being overly aggressive or rude, both professionally and personally.

Both of the others remained silent as I questioned the officer who was inside the house some more, asking him again exactly what reason he had for entering? Aptly, An Englishman’s home is his castle — which dates back to 1604 applies in just as much, if not more, here in Washington. Up until this point, we had spent literally months in isolation and had been doing everything we could to socially distance, only to find someone uninvited in our house, not wearing a mask or even thinking twice about the risk that posed to us. And we’d done absolutely nothing wrong. At all.

I was more worried about my daughter, so quickly brought the conversation back to that rather than the officer inside my house. She isn’t there!, I said, still concerned. The deputy then said, We have a “lead” on her. She is OK. Mostly relieved, but still confused about what was happening, I started to wonder why the deputy had asked me to go and get her from her room when she had known that she was not in the house. Why didn’t she tell me this straight away? Why did she let me go and get her? That was the only reason I left the front door and gave the other officer any kind of possible reason to enter our house.

The Deputy asked if she was my biological daughter (yes), what her name and DOB were, and then if there was anyone else in the house. The Deputy asked if she could speak to my partner. My partner came to the door and the Deputy asked to speak to her alone, outside. My partner had to ask the Deputy and the two officers to move out of the way, so she could leave the house without coming into contact with them. They looked very confused and asked what she was doing as she politely explained the 6 feet thing, social distancing, and our nearly 2 month long quarantine. They weren’t immediately aware of it and seemed confused by her insisting (politely) they keep their distance from her. What is wrong with this silly woman? Why is she trying to keep her distance? Okay, we’ve heard about this social distancing thing — guess we should just do it! This seemed to be the tone. After she was outside and explained what happened (and matched my story) the Deputy asked for her contact information.

My partner then proceeded to explain that both she and I, as well as our kids, are in the Washington Address Confidentiality Program — for survivors of domestic violence, sexual assault and stalking. We moved to Washington after my partner’s abusive ex-boyfriend had stalked us and made death threats against us. He was released from prison, has since passed away and is no longer a threat. Now instead, we worry about the ex’s malicious father.

Soon after moving here and once my partner felt safe enough to do so, she filed a police report with the local police department detailing being raped by her ex-boyfriend after I had already met her. She had not been able to report this before we moved to another state for fear of retaliation. When she did, the local police made a “mistake” (their words) and ended up releasing her name and our new address (which we moved across the country to keep hidden) to the police in the town we moved from to get away from the constant fear she lived with. The same local police which then happily provided our new address, unredacted, to anyone who filled out a form online asking for the rapist’s criminal record.

All that to say: giving our name and address to the local police is a big deal — potentially one of life or death for us. The local police have proved themselves incompetent in protecting our privacy already. Not to mention, again, we have done nothing to warrant this response, nor is there any legal requirement to give our names. They could have easily run the car plates if they wanted to.

After my partner finished explaining to the Deputy, she called me over and asked me for my contact details. I asked them what they would do with the details, and gave them just my first name. The Deputy asked for my last name.

At this point, I asked — do I have to give it? Am I required to? The officer who was previously inside the house said to the officer standing next to him: “We could arrest him, I guess.” The other officer, clearly noticing how rude his colleague was, said to the angry officer “Hey, let’s go for a walk.” They disappeared. That was the first, and only, bit of professionalism seen from the local Police department in this whole incident.

After the rude officer left, I again explained the situation to the Deputy. She promised our details would be kept confidential. Telling me she was “not the other officer” who put our lives at risk. Knowing there wasn’t much point anyway, as my name is on the car registration and they presumably had already run them (or would), I gave it to her.

It wasn’t until this point that she told me that they “had a lead on where she was”. Apparently our daughter had called her friend (from a Google Home in her room) telling her she was having a panic attack and she was scared because my partner and I “might split up”. Certainly a potentially devastating thing to hear, and we are sad we weren’t more aware of her hearing us and how it affected her. But life isn’t all rosy all of the time, and yeah, we are definitely not perfect. That does not make us criminals, or abusive. It makes us humans.

The parent that picked our daughter up, to our knowledge, never asked any questions like: “Did he hit you?” (no), “Did he ask you to go to your room and you refused?” (yes), not even a simple “Has he ever even just once hit or hurt you in any way at all?” (no). And even if the parent did ask and got those answers (we are assuming our daughter would answer them truthfully), why were we still not contacted? Why, at the very least, was my partner not contacted? Instead, our daughter was encouraged to be picked up by an unauthorized adult and subsequently leave our house without telling us.

This same parent then apparently called 911 and drove to a spot near our house, with our 13 year old daughter on a rural road alone, and without us being aware. Instructed by another parent.

This parent never bothered to text or call us, even though she had our numbers and knew us well. The parent did not socially distance herself from our daughter, even instructing her to get in her car. (???!!!) Once we got word from the police where our daughter was, we texted the parent immediately. Our daughter had relayed via the police that she wanted to stay the night, which we refused. The parent then asked if she could at least stay to eat. I said no, again and asked if she was able to drop her off or if we should come to get her. I told her frankly that I thought it was odd that she hadn’t tried to make contact with us.

Now let me say, I made it very clear to the other parent that I am not at all angry about her calling the police, in itself. Especially if she thought there was potentially any danger to our daughter or anyone else. We all need to be aware, more so now than ever, of anyone who is being abused and does not have school or other places to go that they’d be noticed, listened to, and helped. But this is a teenager with a little too much entitlement who does not like losing access to her laptop/phone/Google Home/TV/Xbox/VR. A teenager that was made to go to their room after being rude and refusing to follow her parent’s instructions. She wouldn’t have lied about the situation if she had been asked. Our actions did not make for abuse, it makes for good parenting. And good parenting sometimes isn’t fun, easy, or very pretty. This good parenting turned into a visit from the police who then came into our home uninvited, and had our daughter out on a rural road, alone, because of this one parent’s decisions. That makes me angry!

Her friend’s mother dropped her off soon after I reminded her of the quarantine and how she had put us all at risk. No apology or any response at all. I’ve not heard from her since.

Things are OK with our daughter for now, although losing access to electronics is like taking drugs from an addict it would seem. Who knows when it will flare up again. We have talked about how her reactions were not OK, but also tried to temper that with making sure she knows that she should always reach out to the police or to friends if she feels in danger.

It is hard to quantify or put some simple rules on when a child is in danger vs them just not liking what is happening. In this case, being made to go to your room and your parents taking things away from you does not equal that kind of danger. Parents that are arguing — parents that have never, ever in any way even slightly been violent with each other or their children — does not equal that kind of danger either.